How Informal Truth Practices Can Entail a Thicker Understanding of Truth in the Syrian Context

Truth is a central concept in the pursuit of justice for Syrians. Many justice actors, or stakeholders who are involved in these justice efforts, have turned to the tools and rhetoric of transitional justice. In doing so, justice actors have been able to generate international attention for the plight of Syrian victims and counter the prevailing international defeatism about advancing justice when the conflict is ongoing. However, adopting the transitional justice toolkit in an atypical context such as Syria, contains several pitfalls such as an almost exclusive focus on criminal accountability. Furthermore, in the domain of truth-seeking, the dominant understanding tends to be rather narrowly defined as forensic or factual truth, to the detriment of other forms of truth. This paper examines the potential of informal truth practices like artistic practices and initiatives by victims groups to uncover victims’ realities and accommodate multi-layered narratives. By ‘presencing’ truth claims that are absent or sidelined in dominant justice debates or formal justice avenues, they contribute to a thicker, multi-layered understanding of truth that goes beyond what is already known. On the basis of interviews with Syrian writers, filmmakers, and justice actors, the paper explores the potential of literary writing, cinema and victim-led initiatives to counter the erasure of victims’ experiences, thus opening up the ‘justice imagination’; ways of thinking about what is possible in terms of justice, within and beyond formal avenues.